RAETECH GT2 Porsche 2012 Season Review

RAETECH scores fourth place in the 2012 SCCA Road Racing GT2 National Championships.

After a six year absence from the SCCA’s National Championships, the RAETECH/Porsche driven by David Finch, President of both RAETECH and DAF Consulting, finished a very respectable fourth place in the RAETECH/Porsche 944 competing against the latest Porsches, Nissans, Mazdas and Toyotas.

It has been a long time away from actively campaigning the car for both the driver and the team. The past six years RAETECH has been focusing on other projects including developing a line of race car load sensors and precision electronics as well as the winning engine package use by Edison2 who took home the $5,000,000 Progressive Automotive X-Prize for fuel efficient cars.

Finch stated, "This attempt at the national championship was a test run for next year’s 50th anniversary of the SCCA’s National Championship. A lot of things have changed since we last raced and we need to catch up with the technology and the race track. We showed up with a new aero dynamic package, wheels and tires as well as a completely new 3.0 liter four cylinder engine. The Raetech 944 is also being used as a test bed for RAETECH’s line of motorsports load sensors. We have had only a few hours of testing on the complete package prior to leaving for the National Championship race. The RAETECH/Porsche is the only car in the field with a four cylinder engine. All the others are 3.5 liter or larger V6 and V8 engines."

"We were pleased that the RAETECH/Porsche 944 performed well and this bodes well for the upcoming development and racing seasons. We know were we need to go and how to get there. The game plan is in place and will commence immediately. Besides working on the car, the driver will be going through a redevelopment program. Six years is a long time to be out of a precision sport like road racing and will require a great deal of practice and training to get back to peak performance levels. This again is encouraging based on our team performance at this year’s SCCA National Championship Run Offs."

"We had a set back during the event with a broken suspension element that lead to a hard hit on a concrete barrier. The track has changed so much since I last raced there twelve years ago. It now has extremely aggressive rumble strips at the inside and outside of the corners. This extra loading lead to a suspension failure. It required a day and a half to repair the car and make changes to compensate for the additional loads. We missed half of the qualifying and track time and that put us behind the curve for both car development and driver familiarization. In all, I chose to drive a conservative race with the objectives of gathering data and, of course, finishing. Going into this championship race, we knew it was not our year to win. We will be a bit more aggressive next year."

The RAETECH team has won the GT2 National Championship six times, finished second five times with a third and now a fourth place. That’s in only fifteen attempts. “Not so bad overall.” Says Finch.

Below are photos of the 2012 car. You will notice the front splitter, rear wing, 18 inch wheels, body work and engine bay. Everything else is under the skin.